Making Sense of DNS

DNS or Domain Name Service is the tool that you use to locate web sites, collect mail and generally find stuff on the Internet. In the beginning, users of the Internet, when it was still known as ARPAnet, were forced to use a hosts file called HOSTS.TXT which did the conversion of the IP Address (like 192.168.2.34) to a host (like mail.example.org) by downloading a large file from a central location that listed all of the hosts on the Internet and their IP Addresses. As the network grew, this soon became a situation that could not continue based on the sheer size and the rapid growth of the Internet.

This article will help you figure out how it all works so that you can use this tool effectively.